Gerald Fernback and Richard Gordon toast to the success of their new business venture at a German restaurant in London’s Soho.
During the 1950s, when I was making a series of B-movie co-productions in England, for which I also negotiated the American distri- bution deals, Gerry Fernback was the head of Republic Pictures there. When I screened him a print of my film THE FIGHTING WILDCATS [1957], which Keefe Brasselle starred in and also directed, Gerry liked it and, on behalf of Repub- lic, bought it for distribution in America. We became friends and, shortly thereafter, he left Republic to go into business on his own. He bought a travel agency called Embassy Travel and was very successful in that field. I was not involved but we remained in contact. In 1961, he suggested to me that we form a company to supply American films to British television which, at that time, consisted only of the BBC and one commercial channel [Granada Television]. The Hollywood major studios had all agreed not to release their films to television in England, and British films were also restricted. We formed a company which we called Protelco Productions.
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Gerry came up with the name; I don’t remem- ber from where it derived. Protelco became the leading supplier of independent product to the networks.
When I was getting ready to make DEVIL
DOLL [1964] in association with the UK distribu- tor Gala Films, Gerry offered to participate in the financing and become a partner in my pro- duction plans. DEVIL DOLL was very success- ful, both in England and in the United States (where I released it through Joe Solomon’s Fan- fare Films), so we followed it quickly with a film based on a screenplay which had been submit- ted to me under the title LION MAN. Gala Films released it in the UK as THE CURSE OF SIMBA and I renamed it CURSE OF THE VOODOO in the United States, where Allied Artists released it [in 1965]. Meanwhile, we continued our tele- vision business in the UK and Gerry expanded his travel agency into the freight business, where he specialized in providing the facilities for film companies that were going overseas on location.
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